‘Musical offering’ reviewed in Bach Magazin

In their series of recordings – now grown to eleven CDs – The Bach Players illuminate the musical and historical context of Bach’s music. In this case the Musical offering is combined with a trio sonata by Buxtehude, and the connection can be seen not only in the form of the trio sonata, but also in the fact that both works consist of fourteen parts. This, however, could be connected with the Institutio oratoria of the Roman teacher of rhetoric Quintillian, in which the five elements of a classical speech are treated in fourteen aspects; in both Buxtehude’s and Bach’s times this was the basis of teaching in Latin and rhetoric. In the project under consideration, Silas Wollston is the leading voice for The Bach Players, and in his practical introduction [in the CD booklet] to the Musical offering he engages with a relevant article by Ursula Kirkendale (1980), without concealing the counter-position (above all from Christoph Wolf and Peter Williams). It is just such an honest dealing with the sources and the secondary literature that makes the concept of this production so sympathetic.

In addition, the musical realization is extremely successful. Marion Moonen (traverso flute), Nicolette Moonen (violin), Reiko Ichise (viola da gamba) and Silas Wollston (harpsichord) play with flawless technique and beautiful tone, are very clear in their contrapuntal analysis, and – at the same time, where it is appropriate, do justice to the music – partly virtuosic, partly expressive in character. In the third movement of the trio sonata they show very beautifully how the old Bach presented his sons with a model piece in the ‘empfindsamer’ style; while in the Buxtehude piece the spirit of the stylus fantasticus is audible. Highly recommended!